At a glance
A journey through the shifting skies of the 19th century, tracing how artists and early photographers raced to capture the most elusive forms in nature.
Meet the artist
Why go
It brings together rare oil sketches and early experimental photographs from the Met's collection, revealing the moment when artistic intuition met the birth of modern meteorology.
You'll see
Plein-air oil studies · Early daguerreotypes · Constable's atmospheric sketches · Alfred Stieglitz's Equivalents series
Pace of visit
The intimate scale of the Howard Gilman Gallery invites a slow, close-up inspection of small-scale sketches and delicate vintage prints.
Don't miss
The Equivalents series by Alfred Stieglitz, where the sky becomes a purely abstract form of personal and psychological expression.
Artlovers Tip
Look closely at the early photographs; you can often spot the subtle brushstrokes where photographers manually added clouds to fix the blank, overexposed skies of early film negatives.
Inside the exhibition
Chasing Clouds at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York examines the human obsession with documenting the sky. Located in the Howard Gilman Gallery, the exhibition explores the evolution of cloud representation from the early 1800s through the 1920s. Visitors encounter a range of works that demonstrate how the sky served as a primary testing ground for both artistic technique and scientific observation.
The show highlights a dialogue between different media, featuring plein-air oil sketches by John Constable and Eugène Delacroix alongside the technical innovations of early photographers like Gustave Le Gray. The selection illustrates how artists navigated the limitations of early camera technology—often painting clouds directly onto negatives—while painters like Johan Christian Dahl recorded atmospheric changes with scientific precision. The exhibition spans several departments, including European Paintings and the American Wing, to show the global nature of this fascination.
By placing these works alongside the rise of meteorology and the first formal cloud classifications, the Met frames the sky as a site of both scientific inquiry and poetic beauty. The presentation culminates with the abstract cloudscapes of Alfred Stieglitz, marking the point where the sky moved from a natural subject to a modern psychological mirror. Seeing these diverse approaches together reveals how the pursuit of accuracy eventually gave way to the search for emotional resonance.
Worth travelling for?
A rewarding stop for those who appreciate the quiet beauty of landscape studies and the fascinating technical history of early photography.
Experience as an Artlover
The exhibition is free with museum admission, which is pay-as-you-wish for New York State residents and students from NY, NJ, and CT. The Met Fifth Avenue is open Sunday–Tuesday and Thursday from 10 am to 5 pm, and Friday–Saturday from 10 am to 9 pm.
Chasing Clouds
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